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It’s late August, the time of year when traffic is heavy on the Atlantic Flyway — southbound traffic. This is when birds begin the trip along a migration route that stretches from Greenland to Patagonia.

It runs right over New York City, but birders have noticed that fewer birds are passing through New York. Marshall Iliff, the project leader for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird project, said the wildfires in Canada had sent many birds south earlier than expected. He said that raised the question of whether birds can adapt to changing environments: As the forests dry out and fires increase, birds that are expected to be seen passing through Central Park in spring could become “these really rare, rare events.”

Still, some birds that were once rare in New York City have been putting in more frequent appearances. For bird-watchers, the excitement is dampened by an awareness that the population expansion is being driven by warmer ocean temperatures and melting snowpacks, along with wildfires.

Sharp-eyed birders might spot brown boobies, a tropical species with brown plumage and a white belly that was once rare even in Southern states. But since 2010 or so, that bird has been seen “all up and down the East Coast, multiple times per year,” Iliff said. One was spotted on Coney Island on June 27.

It’s unclear whether the species will become a regular in the North. Scientists say it has ventured this far from its usual haunts as ocean temperatures have risen. Brown boobies have also been seen inland, in lakes in western Massachusetts, which puzzles birders because brown boobies are generally saltwater birds.